The Battle of Tomochic_The Battle of Tomochic Memoirs of a Second Lieutenant

by Heriberto Frías

  At the risk of being hunted down by the Tomochic fighters in the houses at the far edge of town or by the guerrillas in the tower, the women pressed on, reaching the plain and then the banks of the river, where they filled canteens by the dozens.

  While some of the women stocked up on water, others got down on their knees and faced Tomochic. They lifted their outstretched arms as though in prayer, believing that the Tomochic fighters wouldn’t dare fire on them in that sacred posture. In fact, the highly acclaimed marksmen never opened fire on the women who provided fresh, clean water to “the sons of Lucifer.” The chivalrous sons of the mountains didn’t kill women.

  The eagle-eyed sons of Tomochic must have been able to see the women quite clearly on the riverbank, but they nobly respected their lives.

  Then the women would turn and ascend the mountain again, stopping now and again to catch their breath, clambering over the rugged, undulating back of the monstrous cyclops that swarmed with the dread pursuers of the Lion of Tomochic.

  What a commotion broke out when the water arrived, so fresh, so delicious! Coins and dirty bills rained into the women’s dripping hands. The soldiers yelled out, “water, water” from between the arms stockpiles, and the camp became animated with a fresh, crystalline joy; it was as though a warm jolt of energy passed through the sadness of fatigue and thirst.

  And the soldiers drank. They quaffed long and deeply until the water dripped off their dusty, torn blue jackets. Once their thirst was satisfied, they flung themselves down to wait for their white flour tortillas and bloody pieces of smoking meat.

  After eating and resting, gathered around the tents of general headquarters, under the open sky, on their peak towering over the silent immobility of Tomochic, the defeated troops recovered their confidence. Once again they felt capable of fighting, ready for death, as long as they were under skilled command.

  As the afternoon waned, the officers of the Ninth gathered to eat, while the two remaining captains, Tagle and Molina, presided. The latter, as usual, was trying to enliven the conversation and encourage the soldiers’ hopes for success and sweet revenge. The junior officers listened attentively as they devoured their broiled meat and white tortillas. When they were sated, the conversation turned to events of the previous day.

  It was rumored that the general was indignant about the 9th Battalion’s performance. He had not expected them to retreat the way they did. In fact, Castorena claimed that he happened to overhear a nighttime conversation between the general and Colonel Torres, in which the general said, “Listen, Colonel, they didn’t just run like sheep, they ran like ewes! The officers of the military academy, nothing but inexperienced boys. Like raw recruits! Baaa!”

  Hearing this, Captain Molina, frowning and trembling with rage, replied, “We have to show them what we’re worth, guys. We’ll soon see. It may have been someone’s fault, but it sure wasn’t ours … The blame lies …” Then realizing that he was straying into the area that regulations called “questioning orders,” he held his tongue.

  A suddenly thoughtful lieutenant spoke up: “What’s really hurting us is the number of deserters. This is very serious.”

  Miguel interrupted the conversation to pompously interject: “What’s really happening here? Those the general calls deserters are only scattered, which is a big difference. Either way, deserters or scattered, in reality, there aren’t that many. More of them are dead—and do we really know how many died? Only the ones we’ve seen with our own eyes, or at least someone has seen, show up on the list. But can we say how many are dead, how many wounded, how many scattered or deserted, until we’ve thoroughly combed the field? I’m sure that they put things down in the reports that were completely false.

  At that moment the general’s bugle rang out the honor roll to convene the officers. Nighttime rounds were assigned. Duty consisted of checking up on the sentinels and the guards paired in the advance posts.

  In the dispatch order, which was read out to the men at six o’clock each evening after the change of guard, the duties of night rounds were spelled out in detail. From nine o’clock to ten o’clock it was Miguel’s duty to check up pair by pair on the line of sentinels and guards surrounding the camp; at each step he would trip on the rugged slope. Mistakenly overhearing a few words of conversation in the Pima camp, he learned that an old Tomochic fighter who had been brought to the camp as a prisoner from Pinos Altos had been sent before the firing squad.

  “Commander, if what those Tomochic fighters say is true, we’re damned to hell or gonna be struck down by lightning! We just executed the famous St. Joseph. He died like a man, all right …” said one of the Pimas.

  The officer turned away. He didn’t want to hear any more. Then it dawned on him—they had executed Julia’s father! That poor old fool drunk on the delirium of Tomochic! Poor Julia!

  In the immense peace of the cold, black night, standing near the group of brave boys from Sonora, Miguel shivered and drew his cape tightly around him. The troops were talking about the heroic death of an obstinate old fool, a pitiable, credulous hero who thought he had been sent from God. Standing amid the rocks, Miguel’s heart throbbed with love and pain as he thought of Julia.

  CHAPTER 26

  After the Looting, the Fires

  October 22 came and went with nothing to report. Early in the morning the marksmen began to open a desultory fire on the town to prevent flight.

  Every once in a while the cannon shot a round that hit Tomochic, opening up large craters in the hard adobe walls of the houses and raising clouds of dust. Both the brigade doctor and the general who ordered the cannon fire were passionate aficionados of target practice. After the cannon’s resounding boom, profound silence again reigned over the desolate valley. When the two had detonated several true hits, they would celebrate with a glass of cognac to the great distress of Castorena, who couldn’t buy himself a sip of sotol for all the money in the world.

  By now it was generally known that the proud Tomochic fighters would not go cheap even though they had suffered significant losses, were acting strictly on the defensive, and were waiting to be attacked in their own homes. Meanwhile, the hours passed in a thick, heavy daze that became denser over time.

  There were occasional outbursts of rage in which the peak of Cerro de Medrano hill would be pelted with bullets. After the cannon blasts, the Tomochic fighters targeted the troops who manned the Hotchkiss cannon.

  Federal forces found many advantages in that high peak. The ample mesa was protected by natural flanges that served as useful parapets. Behind the high mesa, the soaring mountains offered their protection to the camp.

  The highest crest overlooked the entire valley where Tomochic’s scattered dwellings could be seen from the foothills. At the southernmost end of village rose the mighty church tower, which was crowned with sudden sparks as it pelted the federal camp with lead. Watched over by a guard of twenty men, the cannon projected out over the town. Then came the 12th, 24th, and 11th Battalion camps.

  The 9th Battalion occupied the most vulnerable spot, situated at the center of the mesa close to the only accessible part of the hill. Since leaving Guerrero, the companies of the Ninth had been assigned the most dangerous tasks, which they tackled with uncommon spirit, precision, and discipline, whether it put them in the good graces of the troops and officers of other contingents or not.

  The picturesque, comfortable camp of the Pimas and the Tarahumaras lay behind the Ninth’s camp. How their attitude of defiant freedom lifted spirits! Then came the camp of the Chihuahua nationals. The series of camps ended with the Chihuahua National Guard, a disorganized mass of poorly armed men.

  The detachment from the 5th Regiment had undertaken the march to Guerrero. They were providing safe conduct to the wounded officers and soldiers who, by their presence, would constitute an eloquent, if silent, report to General Márquez about the events of October 20.

  On October 23 General Rangel discovered that the Tomochic fighters had pul
led back into the church and dwellings that surrounded the little barracks (the soldiers’ name for the Cruz Chávez house) and had abandoned the ones farther out. He ordered a few corps from the 12th, the 11th, and the 24th Battalions to go down and set them on fire. They would try to corral the enemy bit by bit, until hunger and fire vanquished them.

  Following orders, they encountered no resistance. The soldiers entered the abandoned dwellings, robbed what they could, and then doused them with gasoline and set them ablaze. After the looting, the fires.

  The more isolated dwellings at the far side of the valley began to burn at once. Black smoke stained the limpid blue sky with dirty smudges peppered with sparks. The soldiers returned to camp laden with swine, chickens, clothes, and musical instruments. They even retrieved the saddles taken from the 5th Regiment on September 2, in addition to old weapons, paintings of saints, hides, cartridge belts, and even tin pots and pewter plates. The looting lasted all day; by nightfall the flaming Tomochic dwellings threw plumes of smoke into the gloomy darkness.

  In the afternoon, the marksmen posted to the mountaintop watched awestruck as a man burst out of the Cruz house and darted toward the mountains. At first they fired on him without wounding him. He hid in the underbrush and then reappeared carrying a long white pole with a white cloth dangling from it. The men held their fire, thinking he might be an emissary offering to surrender. But when he reached the foot of the mountains he was fired on from the tower. When he finally disappeared behind a grouping of rocks, everyone was perplexed. Finally the man arrived at camp. An old, exhausted Indian, he was sweating profusely from his narrow escape. Thin, barefoot, and hatless, he wore a torn shirt and old rolled-up pants, and to the surprise of all, he spoke with great resolve.

  He had accompanied General Rangel on September 2 and had been taken prisoner. On October 19, Cruz proposed that he take up arms. He accepted with the hope of eventually escaping, which he had just risked his life to accomplish. After the general interrogated the old Indian at length, the news he brought spread among officers and soldiers alike. Among all the details—both insignificant and blown way out of proportion—there was a single piece of important news: Cruz Chávez was demoralized and his provisions were scarce.

  The men’s spirits lifted, and they believed that the very next day “they would be eating chicken” in the town of Tomochic, whose outermost dwellings were burning to the ground. The officers strolled through the camp in small groups of three or four, happily smoking and commenting on what the fugitive had related.

  That night Castorena cadged a drink of tequila from Dr. Arellano in exchange for an improvised poem, and then he let Miguel know about the enemy’s situation. The Medranos had died. So had the Calderóns. Manuel Chávez was seriously wounded, as well as four or five of the Mendías who were recovering in the Chávez “barracks.” If they were lucky, there wasn’t a single healthy Tomochican left!

  Pedro Chaparro’s forces were the only ones left. Holed up on Cerro de Cueva hill, they were more ferocious than ever. This was important because Chaparro dominated access to the nearby church, the town being located to Chaparro’s left. In fact, this was the Tomochic fighters’ only avenue of retreat. Understanding this, Cruz had Cerro de Cueva hill solidly protected.

  Around twenty men guarded the church where the families were holed up. There were other men in the so-called barracks, or Cruz’s house, where the families of his brothers, the Medranos, and Bernardo were staying.

  Meanwhile, provisions were running out. Besieged as they were, however, the men weren’t willing to risk their lives to gather the corn, beans, potatoes, or grains from their abundant crops. They knew they would be hunted down and slaughtered like animals. Their cattle roamed freely, wandering through the valley along with the pigs and chickens. The dogs were jumpy, nervous. They howled through the day and barked viciously all night.

  The cannon’s detonations had little effect on the Tomochicans. The minimal explosives could only dent the walls of the empty dwellings. Sometimes an exploded mortar shell killed a chicken or two and sent the other chickens clucking off in panic, running this way and that in the black clouds of dust and gunpowder.

  Cruz Chávez ordered a few women to go out under cover of nightfall to bring in the dead. They were buried with elaborate ceremonies inside the dwellings. Tomochic was being converted into an immense graveyard. And despite everything, they kept the hope of victory alive by making their people believe that the day of retribution was near, since “the dead, just like our Lord Jesus Christ, will be resuscitated on the third day and will once again take up their rifles.”

  Every night Cruz visited the prisoners. He brought them water and toasted corn, and after making them pray, heads bowed, he left them “in the peace of the Lord.” He was as forgiving as he was implacable, and he spared their lives: “Because it is a sin and a crime to wound the defenseless, even though they are children of Satan, just as it is the highest good to kill them like dogs in the hour of combat.”

  He also consoled the women who were crying in desperation. Though they understood little of the upheaval, they hated the mysterious enemy that dared besiege their holy territory. In addition, he spoke to the children about bravery, manliness, and the sacred loathing of the sons of Satan, the ungodly soldiers.

  Both officers were seated before a bonfire where a corporal was cooking their meat rations for them while Castorena recounted the refugee’s tale. Mercado contemplated the distant smoke that bled reddish in the gloom, and he thought of Julia. The tale told by the fugitive from the inferno had inflamed Miguel’s lively imagination. The vivid scenes he saw were painful, atrocious. Their tragic colors only highlighted the gracious aura of that sad adolescent girl.

  He saw her on her knees in the church beneath the battered dome, praying before a terrifying crucifix surrounded by clouds of gunpowder and ominous sparks. The smoke from the Tomochic guns and the smoke from the fires were visible whenever the high winds gusted in from the mountains which still echoed with the chaotic sounds of the looting. He could see her, right from where he stood planted thinking of her; from a chink in the tower she was aiming straight at him, her black eyes hostile and flashing. Those beautiful eyes, aflame with the insanity of her savage pride, as they were the day she said to him, “I am from Tomochic!” How she had pronounced that barbarous, heroic name!

  CHAPTER 27

  The Capture of Cerro de Cueva Hill

  At the break of dawn on October 24 the cannon aimed at the Tomochic church made a “routine call” on the town while bugles from the various companies began to play a strange symphonic reveille. Resonating with the sound of victory, it sang out to the miserable little town of Tomochic, echoing with a grim irony from the top of the hill to the distant rosy reaches of the valley below and reverberating through the sprawling, smoking cemetery. Repeated by all the buglers and trumpeters of the defeated sections, it rang out forlornly in that agonizing dawn

  “What a pathetic reveille! Thoroughly pathetic,” said an officer behind General Rangel, summing up the poignancy and shame of their circumstances. The general turned away, making out only black hoods, spectral silhouettes, he restrained his wrath and said nothing.

  Later, all contingents except the 9th Battalion descended as far as the outskirts of Tomochic to occupy all dwellings. Before setting them afire, they thoroughly ransacked them whereupon the noisy, victorious bunch returned to camp laden with booty.

  Miguel’s responsibility that day was to keep guard from the highest point of the hilltop over the cannon. From behind the parapet he surveyed the terrible spectacle of the fire below. Indeed, the enemy must be contemplating the same destruction, but they waited silently at their posts to be attacked.

  Miguel could hear the few bullets fired from Cerro de Cueva hill, where the red flag flew in the air, whistle fatefully over his head. Later that night he heard that the general had decided to take Cerro de Cueva hill and had assigned the job to Fuentevilla, an adjutant in the Twenty-f
ourth. But in the end the risky undertaking went to Captain Francisco Manzano of the Eleventh, who stealthily departed from the camp in the still of the night with seventy men on a surprise mission to take the designated checkpoints.

  But whether he didn’t comprehend his orders or was unable to carry them out, Manzano went marching down the wrong road. Making a sweeping circle, he attempted to approach the enemy from behind. The irate general ordered the captain to return: the buglers played the passwords, which rang out in the night and woke the troops. The officers on their rounds had to warn the pairs guarding the farthest reaches of camp not to open fire on the forces of the Eleventh as they trailed back in from the failed mission.

  Captain Molina, who was on guard duty, observed the men’s arrival. Once they were all back in he queried a second lieutenant of the Eleventh. “Hey, what happened, comrade? Why did they bring you back in?

  “The general was asking for the impossible. You can’t take that hill, not even with a thousand men. See here, if they had discovered us, they would have torn us to pieces. It was impossible, captain!”

  “Where’s the general, comrade?” asked the captain.

  “We just left him. He and his doctor are still up there. He hasn’t gone to bed yet. It’s already past twelve.”

  It was late, and the general had slept little and was out of sorts. Gathered in the general’s tent, Lieutenant Márquez from the general staff, the doctor, and the general were speaking about the issues involved in launching an all-out attack on Tomochic.

  The captain came in briefly then hurried out again. “There’s no news, captain,” an officer offered as he passed by on his rounds.

  “Thanks, comrade, keep a close watch on the sentinels,” he answered before disappearing among the sleeping soldiers.